Master of Bones
by Vallory Russups
Summary: Living in a castle with tangible ghosts of Seven Strongest isn't exactly what Tsuna envisions when Uncle Kawahira offers him a relaxing vacation. Sky Arcobaleno!Tsuna. Necromancer!Tsuna. Mentor Kawahira. Arcobaleno/27 main, all27.
1. Apprenticeship

Okay, this is a quick thing I wrote because I felt that if I didn't write anything Arco27, plot bunnies would hug me to death. Now that I've got at least this out of my chest, I'm hopping back to Harry Potter *coughTheLibrariancough*... hopefully (damn you, KHR, why don't you let me go? T_T).

This is an AU. Please note that while some Mafia things aren't really... Mafia in this AU, the Flame Lore stays the same, i.e. the Sky-Guardian relationship, etc. There will be way more on this in future chapters. Also, this is a prologue of a sort and covers around 5 years. Tsuna is about 18 now. Also, because, again, this is a prologue, some things are only vaguely mentioned and may be confusing - Tsuna's relationship with Nana, parts of his training, the appearance of a particular character. Again, don't worry, they're meant to be written in such a way and will be explored in more depth.

* * *

 ** _Chapter 1. Apprenticeship_**

* * *

 _Of course_ it had to be a goddamn castle.

The trek wasn't easy. All the paths and dirt roads were so overgrown Tsuna eventually decided that if he couldn't find a road, he would make one, and just carefully burnt through the bushes with his Sky flames. The wind bruised his cheeks, and Tsuna hugged his jacket tighter around him. Why couldn't the place be in the _South_ of Italy?

Tsuna could have flown, of course, but the weight of the luggage wheeling behind him would tire him out even more than this hellish trip. He cursed and burnt the next bush with particular viciousness and creativity.

He wished he could do the same with the person who sent him there.

He was never accepting Uncle Kawahira's holiday offers again.

* * *

Something always alienated Tsuna from most people. They jeered at him for the things they would have cheered at if he were someone else, and they shuddered in disgust whenever he walked by.

Thankfully, they didn't beat him up or corner him. On the contrary. They flinched away whenever his presence staggered near. If they could ignore him, they would. They pretended that he didn't exist at all, as if his presence marred their whole world.

At night Tsuna cried into his hands and pillows.

He yearned for touch, always.

* * *

One day, his mother broke down in the kitchen.

He just wanted to help her clean up after dinner. Of course, his clumsiness kicked in. He lurched, almost falling into his mother-

She shoved him away, a terrified cast in her eyes.

It wasn't an action of surprise. Tsuna read the horror, and it was real. He read the disgust, and it was real.

He stumbled back into the table, accidentally scattering a plate onto the floor. It shattered. He envied the plate; it probably couldn't be in as much pain as him.

Her eyes shifted, part of the disgust directed at herself, and she reached out before letting her hand fall. A smile faltered off her lips before it even formed.

"I'm sorry, Tsu-kun," his mother whispered, hiding her eyes behind trembling hands that never touched him as gently as he wished them to. Hardly touched him at all. Tears clung to her fingers as they streamed down. "I'm trying. I've been trying so hard, for so long, but-"

She covered her eyes, and Tsuna closed his heart.

His pillows were not enough that night.

* * *

It was his non-mentor, the eccentric Uncle Kawahira from the shop next-door who explained it all.

"It's because you're a Sky and a Necromancer," the man told him in a matter-of-fact voice. Tsuna, slumping against the wall outside the house, didn't look up. "As a Sky, you attract attention whenever you go, whether you want it or not. As a Necromancer, however, you are subconsciously considered an abomination, a freak of nature, something that shouldn't exist because your very nature breaks all the taboos and laws. Those two notions clash and cause the reactions that seem to bring you so much grief."

Tsuna had overheard Iemitsu talking about Flames and Skies, the few times the man had bothered coming home and giving Tsuna a forced hug that soaked him in the smell of beer. From literature, he could surmise what a Necromancer was.

A sick feeling rose in his stomach. He couldn't hate himself more.

An abomination.

Suddenly, he understood those people he could never reach. He disgusted himself, too.

The white-haired man didn't show any emotion at all even if his face did wear a not-quite-frown.

"Stop moping," he ordered coldly. Tsuna wondered if the man refused to show any emotion because he didn't want him to see it or because he couldn't _feel_ it. "Being a Necromancer is an honour."

"...I don't feel very honoured."

"Humans are foolish and unable to understand higher things."

Tsuna sighed and stared down at his palms. Would this person let Tsuna touch him, then? If the man apparently considered himself part of other species?

"And Necromancers can?"

"Last I checked, you are still fundamentally human." The man's pressed lips said everything he thought about it.

"Well, that's good because I'm really, really foolish anyway and I'd rather be a normal foolish human than a Necromancer who's no-good at being one." Tsuna sighed and smiled a little. "I wish I were a robot though."

Robots didn't need to feel. Didn't need to touch. Robots didn't need to have friends to smile with, and a father to run in the park with, and a mother to cook with.

Although, of course, knowing Tsuna, he would make a no-good robot, too.

"You won't become a robot-"

Tsuna shot him a filthy look. "Even _I_ know that!"

"-but I can make a decent Necromancer out of you," the man finished.

Tsuna harshly barked in laughter. "Everyone already hates me, why would I make it worse?"

"You have nothing to lose exactly because there is nothing to make worse," the man told him, and Tsuna wondered how this guy lived to his age if he was this brutally honest with everyone. "However, I can teach you to control both Necromantic magic and Sky Flame, and eventually you will attain happiness and companionship. If you live up to my expectations, you will have a home."

The man extended his hand, the first time someone ever did.

Tsuna's fingers shook, and he had to step closer to reach it – he almost tripped and definitely blushed – but the touch was warm and firm. The sky shone bluer.

* * *

Uncle Kawahira became an erratic presence in Tsuna's life.

The whole "I'll make a Necromancer out of you" thing was less Spartan training and more Uncle Kawahira popping up whenever he wanted to steal a bite of Nana's cooking or drag Tsuna to the graveyard, a forest, a mountain, or even one of his shops – he kept shutting down and opening those, making Tsuna wonder why he even bothered at all.

Tsuna couldn't predict those appearances. However, each of them taught him something valuable.

He learnt of Flames. Of Skies and Harmony, of how he would be expected to harmonise one day, and of the doubt that he could ever be worthy of it. Of fear that even if it did happen and he did become special to someone in that terrifying, all-consuming way only a Sky could manage... he would only disappoint.

He learnt of soft flames and hard flames. Uncle Kawahira didn't hand out knowledge on a silver platter; he made Tsuna work for it, and perhaps that's why it stuck in Tsuna's mind.

Most times, Uncle Kawahira arranged his lessons in the form of missions for Tsuna to complete. He would make the boy reach the treetops, a feat impossible without learning to fly. He would make Tsuna go down a mine and then trap him inside, which taught Tsuna how to control his flames – he needed to power through certain sections without making the whole thing fall down on him.

Sometimes, he delivered truths and tips in fortune cookies. In words cutting through the air in broad strokes, sentences of burning indigo fire hanging in the middle of his room. In paragraphs painted across his horrid test results and homework.

Flames, Uncle Kawahira told him, were easy to understand once you get the hang of it. Across the years Tsuna's intuition developed and aided him greatly on this account as well.

Necromancy required more practice. More time to come to terms with.

Every time he practised, Tsuna struggled to get over his own disgust towards his nature – and that was even before he saw his first corpse.

Eventually, his attitude changed.

He peeked at ghosts through a black polished mirror, summoned spirits, and weaved clumsy talismans that would make a fashionista cringe and zombie die. He carved signs into skulls of unknown persons (he always apologised as he was doing it, and thanked them for letting him use their body parts even though they didn't exactly give permission for this type of body usage in their Wills).

He helped people.

The disgust of the living didn't carry into death. On the contrary, every non-breathing creature adored him. From that former classmate of his, a victim of suicide, to the spirit of a five-year-old abandoned in an alleyway. He could provide them with company and comfort, and he took his own share of those in return as well. They beamed at him, and thanked him, and eventually he fell in love with graveyards and massacre sites.

It didn't endear him to anyone alive.

Well, except for his mentor, who turned out to be full of quirks and ticks.

* * *

Uncle Kawahira lacked shame.

One day, Tsuna was dressing for school in front of the mirror and minding his own business when Uncle Kawahira flashed behind his reflection.

"Hiee!" Tsuna yelped as he covered his chest with his shirt. Yes, he was a fifteen-year-old boy and had no breasts but he still didn't fancy flashing his nipples at the man who substituted his father. "I'm a bit busy, Kawahira-san! Could you please warn me next time? Maybe even, I don't know, _knock_ and not just appear in my bedroom?"

Uncle Kawahira swept him with a glance and cocked his head. He had a checkered kimono on today. Tsuna discovered that the man had an obsession with checkers and carried at least one article with black-and-white squares.

"You are embarrassed," he noted clinically.

"I'll be less so if you turn around?"

"You have nothing to be embarrassed of because I have already seen a male human body and I doubt that yours is any different." Uncle Kawahira kept staring at his chest. A mildly puzzled frown played on his face as if he found a problem and pondered on how to best solve it. Tsuna doubted he wanted to know. Besides...

"Not the point!"

Uncle Kawahira sighed and dropped on Tsuna's bed – still not looking away.

"Of course the best possible candidate had to be you," the man muttered to himself before making a broad gesture at Tsuna.

He recognised the feeling of Mist flames, leaned towards their pleasant coolness-

And all his clothes were gone.

 _Everything._

Tsuna stared down at himself in disbelief as his body wondered whether to burst from blushing or unleash the loudest "HIEEEE!" in existence. Two options cancelled out. He just froze and re-thought his life choices.

His mentor nodded, satisfied.

"As I have told you, you have the average body of a human male. Now that I have seen everything, you will not be distracted by such mundane human things as embarrassment when I have salt-circle construction to teach you."

Tsuna wondered why this was his life.

Uncle Kawahira blinked.

"...Tsunayoshi. You are crying."

* * *

Uncle Kawahira didn't understand compassion. At all.

"Tsunayoshi, why are you hugging this thing."

Uncle Kawahira never asked. He showed how unimpressed he was with you.

"Kawahira-san, please don't call him that, it's a child!"

"It's a flesh-eating zombie."

"We shouldn't discriminate people based on their pulse. Now come, you poor thing, you are really cold- Wait, what are you doing?!"

 _"I'll bite you to death!"_

"HIEEE!"

* * *

Uncle Kawahira was ruthless, and demanding, and never failed in letting his disappointment show. He proceeded to tear into Tsuna in the most callous of ways and pointed out every mistake the boy made.

"Tsunayoshi, I am impressed by your stupidity but not the way you carve those bones."

"Tsunayoshi, please tell me that those squiggly lines are not the rune-spell I told you to write- They are. Rip my heart out, will you. I want to cease my existence after this daunting display of incompetence."

"Tsunayoshi, you let that spirit bond to you and now it appears out of nowhere just to kick me in the face. Why."

* * *

Uncle Kawahira was ruthless, and demanding, and never failed in letting his disappointment show.

Yet, most importantly...

Uncle Kawahira always praised him freely whenever Tsuna deserved it.

"You are surprisingly adept at wheedling spirits into talking to you." The man's glasses glinted. "Beware, your charisma is a double-edged sword... but it will serve you right in this business."

"You have good instinct when it comes to your flames. I have only ever seen one person as in tune with their intuition."

"...For all the grief you've given me all these years, I do not regret taking you on as my apprentice."

He rarely smiled. Even when he did, it was merely a quirk of lips, an imitation of the gesture so often made by the human beings he despised. But he touched Tsuna's shoulder, and warmth seeped into his skin and into his heart.

Tsuna lived for those fragments of happiness.

He smiled for both of them, anyway. He _felt_ for both of them, because in the years of his training he saw the depth of tiredness swamping Kawahira-san, how just going through the motions of the daily life exhausted the man. Tsuna even suspected that his teacher secretly liked the instances of exasperation and annoyance at Tsuna because they pushed emotions into him again.

...So, when one day his Uncle Kawahira offered him a vacation, Tsuna accepted, even though he knew there would be nothing vacation-y about it.

* * *

Meanwhile, the inhabitants of a castle hidden behind a veil of Mist in Northern Italy perked up at the approach of powerful flames of an unknown type. The inhabitants were all separated, incapable of moving too far from their anchors but still capable of communicating through the dull orbs if they wished.

"Aw man, please not another one, kora!"

"If this is another Cloud drifting up here to make this castle their territory, I'm not holding back. I'll rob all their relatives and I don't even care if they call themselves 'the most dreaded vampire'."

"I hate to remind you that you're dead, bankrupt, bodiless, bankrupt, and incapable of robbing anyone to fill the void bankruptcy left in your black and rotten heart."

"You know, Fon, even the Great Skull-sama thinks that there were too many 'bankrupt' thrown in there... completely off-topic and irrelevant, by the way."

"The lackey knows the word 'irrelevant'? I'll pick up my jaw in an hour, kora!"

"Idiot student, you won't pick up your jaw because you're in the tower and your body isn't."

"...All of you are disturbing my experiment."

"Hah. What experiment? How fast the dust settles? Does Verde forget that he's as low on energy as the Great Skull-sama and can't do physical-world stuff?"

"Well, if you're interested, indeed, my experiment is connected with dust. And Flame. Since I cannot write it down, it is indeed good fortune you're here – at least one of you may be able to remember my words. So-"

"Oh no. I'll kill you, lackey!"

"I might pay the person who shuts Verde up-"

"Bankruptcy, Viper."

"-Pay in reverse is what I mean. But I might _actually_ pay the person who kills Fon."

Why did Reborn have to be stuck with those idiots?

He looked mournfully at the book in front of him – what a pain to flick pages! He had to gather the remnants of his flames for half an hour for each flip, how humiliating for the Strongest Sun – and tuned out those people. It worked as well as could be expected, considering that through the orbs they communicated directly into each other's minds.

The book was on Sky Harmony, of course.

It was small, a pocket book almost, and its pages light and brittle – easy to shift. Of course, this ease was only the official reason Reborn would give anyone who asked why he was reading such a thing.

The truth: Reborn was a romantic. A bit of a dreamer. Way down, underneath the underneath.

His dream was Harmony.

Honestly, it was an offensively common dream for an Element. Reborn always frowned at himself whenever the mood struck him to depress over his lack of a Sky bond, yet he couldn't squash that hint of longing... even though now it was more unattainable than ever.

He wanted somewhere to belong, and someone to belong to him. In life, he had found neither. In death, he only found a place he belonged in, but a prison, not a home.

He sometimes cursed his own pickiness in life. No Sky had been good enough, not even Luce, despite their warm relationship and to the surprise of others. Now, he would give anything to experience a Sky bond, the opportunity to guard someone, to covet and love them... and, of course, nurture them. In the way Reborn knew best: through tort- training.

(That had been one aspect of his pickiness – even the strongest Skies would have treated him as a subordinate when Reborn's proud nature wouldn't allow for anything less than equality).

He sighed and prepared to turn the page – the idiots in his head still bickered; Viper made a pact with Skull to assassinate Fon, while Verde found willing ears in Lal, and Colonello just wanted to die, _again_ – when his orb glowed.

Those Flames neared the castle. Reborn, not the best sensor but the most attentive at the moment, could define their type.

His soul sparked with warmth.

"Quiet!" he hissed into the bond between them. They complied. "This isn't another Cloud seeking a base. We're having a _Sky_ in our home."

Reborn wouldn't hope. A hope was a useless emotion – for so long he had hoped to have a Sky, then to find life in another body, then to die for good. In vain.

Rather than hope, Reborn would _do_.

The Sky was strong. Harmony within his reach. If the Sky was unworthy, Reborn would drag them through hell until they reached his standards. Moreover, even from this far he inhaled the tantalising aroma that always engulfed people like Luce. Necromancers. He had to keep his excitement down at the possibilities.

They were having a Sky in their home. And with a Sky, it could truly become a Home.

* * *

Hope you enjoyed it and, oh, reviews make me happy?

(By the way, which characters would you like to see more? Personally, I love Fon. My poor underrated rabbit, hardly ever present in stories!)

P.S. Somehow ff really hates my horizontal line thingies, and I've fucked with them more than I care about, hence why I'm posting this later than on AO3. Oh well, hope it's still not too mcuh confusion bc _damn_ am I freaking tired.


	2. Skull

Welcome back, everyone, thank you so very, very much for your reviews! You were all so incredibly supportive that I've decided to actually dedicate time to this story again even though I was really insecure about whether anyone would dig this type of thing. Please have all my love!

This chapter was getting into 7K zone, and since I've decided to keep to shorter chapters, it's been split up. So, this is a bit transitional, but I still hope you have as much fun reading as I had writing it. And it's from the POV of a different character (hence written differently), but it's someone many people seem to like ;) Also, this and the next couple of chapters are relatively light-hearted but don't you worry: I'll hit you with truckloads of angst later.

Oh, and to answer a question - hell yeah, Bermuda is definitely appearing here!

Warning: light Skull27 here, some cussing.

* * *

 _ **Chapter 2. Skull**_

* * *

The hardest thing to deal with was the silence.

The crouching corpse of the castle sprawled across the forgotten grounds, as abandoned as Skull himself. The skeletons of bushes crept beneath darkened windows in complete silence, so at odds with the cheerfully coloured bricks. Reborn had insisted on painting the building pink of all unholy colours just to add more drama to the place, back when they had built it up to be a home. Now it made the whole thing look even more pathetic.

They were all pathetic. The Strongest Seven…

What a fucking joke.

"Don't fail, lackey," Reborn's threatening voice rang through the pacifier. "Unfortunately, you are the only one situated outside, hence the first ghost the Sky will make contact with. If you fail…"

Skull barked in laughter.

"And if Skull-sama fails, what will you do? What _can_ you do?"

Reborn would never stoop to gritting his teeth, but Skull heard the sentiment all the same. Wanted to burst out laughing yet again.

Oh how the tables turned. Death was the greatest equaliser of all, and those words had never rang truer. Not when the others finally got to taste the curse of not-dying that had ailed him even when he had been alive. Alive and the weakest of them all.

Dying for good, Skull shed his fear of the others with ease. The only thing left was regret, regret that he'd allowed them to scare him at all. It was like constructing beasts and villains out of night-time shadows lurking in the room only for the morning light to dispel them into a pile of clothing discarded on a chair.

Funny how death humanised the monsters of his youth.

Funnier still was the fact that the Arcobaleno, the greatest monsters of the world, were the only ones he relaxed around.

Skull's anxiety had always been his biggest issue when alive.

He didn't know why it happened, but whenever he was around people, he just didn't behave like himself. It reminded him of those people who laughed nervously at jokes or in situations that weren't funny, but couldn't stop themselves.

He couldn't stop himself either.

It's what made him create 'Skull' in the first place – someone loud and ostentatious, a persona for his shows to hide the insecurities behind. He could never explain that he didn't act this way on purpose. It was something that just happened no matter his wishes, and he simply turned it into an advantage. Let people think he was arrogant and confident, when in reality he was anything but.

Then again, even if he did explain... he doubted it would have helped him.

Reborn was the worst.

He would always prod Skull, test him and mock him. In the mafia you _had_ to speak, be it with words or fists. Skull wasn't proficient at either, and apparently that reduced his value as a human being in Reborn's eyes. That man mistook anxiety for stupidity and the fact that thoughts were hard to put into words for Skull not having thoughts at all.

Oh well. It didn't matter anymore. Now, all of them were in the same boat, and sometimes, despite the silence that gnawed at his insides, Skull was actually glad about the curse. About the fact that they were ghosts. He always felt bitter, giddy gladness that Reborn was finally suffering, and it was a feeling probably mirrored in all of Reborn's victims everywhere.

It probably helped that he had known about the Curse beforehand. Him, Skull, the only one to know.

All the others assumed he was as crazy about Skies and their Attraction as them, but they forgot two vital facts: one, he was the weakest of them all (barring Colonello, who wasn't supposed to be an Arcobaleno at all but forcefully wedged himself into the position, for all the good it did to him and Lal), and two...

He had been a civilian. Unlike the others, he hadn't been raised on the ideals of Harmony and, a few occasional pangs of emptiness aside, he still wasn't sold on the idea.

Reborn assumed things, as he always did, basing it on Skull's close relationship with Luce. But Luce had been special. A true friend.

She gave him what he desired most at a time when Reborn's words had truly hurt him.

She had pulled him aside and told him all about the impending Curse, telling him that he, as a civilian, would not survive with his morals intact after being cursed. That there was another Cloud almost as strong, and he had a chance to escape.

Skull didn't. He was loyal, dammit, and he would have never left his friend to brave the Curse alone.

He was a Cloud, he valued the freedom of making his own decision even if they put an end to it.

In the end, he accepted with quiet vindictiveness, and watched Reborn suffer and break the way Skull had, silently, before.

A sign of trust and a taste of revenge. Luce had been a dear friend to her very end, and he valued it more than the vague notion of a 'home' that Skies promised.

The only Arcobaleno whose fate he did regret was Lal, because she had been the one to teach him fight, and for all her violent attitude (then again, she was most violent with Colonello, whom she loved) she had subtly cheered him on. Taught him to defend himself. Colonello hadn't liked that, of course.

And now, Reborn and the others were expecting him to play nice with some guy or chick just because they were a Sky. Reborn was already enamoured with this person just because of a single characteristic, the way he had despised Skull because of _his_ characteristic – him being a civilian, being noisy ( _anxious_ ), incapable of defeating mafia bosses with a single scary smirk.

Skull would have liked to take it all out on the Sky just out of spite, to shoot down Reborn's chances, but unfortunately he wasn't built like that.

He couldn't summon enough hate for an innocent, damnit.

So, he sat down and waited.

* * *

A figure appeared on the horizon, stumbling out of the overgrown bushes. Sky Flames blazed the way, and even from this far Skull felt-

Oh. Wow.

That's... that's some _Sky_.

Damn. He... hadn't quite accounted... for _this_ level of Sky Attraction.

And physical attraction, too, to be perfectly honest.

Okay, that's a Sky _all right_. With Skull's senses duller than those of others', he hadn't felt it from afar, but now...

He was happy he'd decided he wouldn't do anything malicious towards the Sky. Hell, he wouldn't have been capable of it anyway because _damn_.

He had never felt this hot and bothered when _alive_ , and now he was a goddarn _ghost_ with a pacifier as his body! Yet waves of heat raked through him, stronger and stronger, and had he any blood left, he would have blushed. A lot.

At least he couldn't get a hard-on.

Always look for positives, he told himself. Meanwhile, the Sky neared, and Skull resisted a wolf whistle because that would definitely not be any type of courteous behaviour, and Lal would kill him (he did somewhat care for her), and the Sky would probably slap him, and-

Hot damn. The Sky was pretty as hell, too. Definitely the type Skull would have banged in life. (Sucked for Reborn that it's a guy though. But Skull, the pansexual beast he was, had never thought much about his partners' gender).

An old, forgotten wave of insecurity mounted in him, stumping Skull, because now he actually _cared_ if he fucked this up!

The Sky came even closer. He struggled with the luggage he dragged behind, thus not noticing the ghost but by Lord did Skull notice _him_. And ogle. Yeah, not to forget that, because that Sky had lots of things to ogle.

He was rather short, taller than East-Asian women tended to be (and Skull could see that the Sky was East-Asian, perhaps Korean? Japanese?) but shorter than the Arcobaleno, even Viper or Lal in high heels. Long auburn hair gathered in a messy side ponytail, leaves and twigs sticking out of it, as if the Sky had taken a tumble down a bush or thirty. Skull valiantly resisted all thoughts of where he could take the boy to tumble.

His features soft and mouth downturned, there was something heart-wrenchingly sad about this Sky. As if grief always plagued him. Grief or... a sense of longing?

Skull wanted to wrap him in a blanket burrito and even moved forward to be a total creeper and hug the lights out of this stranger Sky-

No. Sky Attraction.

Skull gritted his teeth and shuffled awkwardly, not feeling the earth beneath with his very undead, ghostly legs. (Ghostly they may be, but they were very darn good legs. Skull was happy that death returned them to their adult bodies – if he had to be dead, he'd rather be dead with style).

Then, the Sky looked in his general direction.

And-

Did Skull gain a body? Bodily functions?

-Because he couldn't breathe, and that's surely impossible for someone who's been a floating corpse for twenty years?

The Sky's eyes... were a vibrant, gorgeous orange. Bright, as if flames illuminated them from within, more beautiful than the sunsets he had spent travelling the world. Nostalgic and invoking feelings Skull thought he'd lost a while ago.

All right, he probably shouldn't fuck this up. He was going to introduce himself, smile, and stump that darn Sky into speechlessness like he used to do with his fans before the shows.

He took a deep breath, forgetting yet again that he needn't breathe at all, and-

"BOW AND BEHOLD THE GREAT SKULL-SAMA, THE DAMN GREATEST GHOST YOU'LL EVER FIND ON THIS LAND! NO, NOT LAND! HELL, THE GREATEST GHOST IN HISTORY!"

-well. He hadn't meant to do that.

The Sky dropped the handle of his luggage with a thump. Stared.

Skull mentally hit himself. Apparently, his anxiety only stopped being an issue around the Arcobaleno.

The ensuing awkward pause and rapid eye-blinks made him want to add a kick to that for a good measure. Well, Skull had stumped him into speechlessness all right.

"Um... Nice to meet you?.. G-great Skull-sama?" the Sky asked-said, scratching his cheek. He tried to pick up his luggage, only to stumble over it – how was _that_ possible? – and join his possessions on the ground.

The Sky, sprawled clumsily near a puddle, looked like he wanted that puddle to drown him. He decidedly avoided looking at the ghost. Skull... sensed a kindred spirit.

"Um," Skull started awkwardly. "I'd offer you a hand but..."

He waved it, and it went through the tree beside him.

"Ah, no, that's- That's fine!" The Sky jumped to his feet, sweeping a hand through his hair and scooping out a twig. Then another. Then there were ten leaves. He glanced at Skull nervously before smiling. "It's nothing new, really. Just- Don't tell my Uncle. He'd try to put me through that whole 'You'll be graceful by the time I'm through with you, Tsunayoshi' thing again. Never mind that it's never worked the last five times he did it."

"Yeah, I can see it didn't."

Oops. Perhaps Skull should pay more attention to what his mouth was saying rather than stare at the Sky's.

Reborn wasn't physically there, but Skull somehow sensed his scary aura. Oh well. He mentally flipped Reborn the bird.

The Sky didn't take offence.

"I didn't know you lived here, S-skull-sama? I wasn't told- Oh well. It would have changed nothing, with that guy," the Sky muttered the last part under his breath. Ruffling his hair again, he grinned when he found no more leaves there.

"Some people just can't take 'no' for an answer." Skull nodded understandingly. Strangely, now that he and the Sky were talking, he could keep his GREAT SKULL-SAMA thing at bay.

"Yeah. That's why I'll be sharing your living space for some time. Ah, but don't worry! It's just a vacation. I'm pretty sure he'll get bored with watching me suffer soon and I'll be free to go home." The Sky beamed, and it was a sight that would make grown men believe in angels. Because one was standing in front of Skull.

Too... shiny...

"Some people... never get bored with watching others suffer," Skull found the strength to breathe out. He pointedly didn't look back at the pacifier connecting him to the others.

"I like to believe in the best of people," the Sky told him with a wry, self-deprecating smile. That sadness was back. Skull wanted to wipe it away except that...

There was nothing he could do.

And it was Sky Attraction making him behave this way anyway.

The Sky perked up then. "I'm sorry, I didn't introduce myself. I'm Tsuna. It's a pleasure to meet you, Skull-sama."

He bowed.

He grinned at Skull as if it really was a pleasure, and this... was a very novel idea when it came to Skull's interaction with Flame Users.

"Yeah," Skull said softly. "A pleasure." Swiftly, he slipped on a smile. "Are you coming to live here alone? Isn't it dangerous, living in a haunted castle now that you know it's haunted."

"Well, I suspected I'd find someone... like you." Tsuna had enough tact to not say 'someone dead like you'. "And as I've told you, I didn't exactly have a choice. Someone important asked me."

Fondness sparkled in the Sky's eyes. Perhaps Skull misread the situation and that person wasn't like Reborn at all.

"Besides," Tsuna continued. "I might not end up as alone as I think. A few friends will likely join us. They're... like you. And then there is a friend like me who'll probably come here."

Tsuna sighed. He looked very resigned.

"Why didn't your 'friend like you' come to help you? You obviously have a bit of a problem with your luggage."

An endearing blush dusted Tsuna's cheeks.

"You are misunderstanding the situation," the Sky mumbled into his collar, shoulders hunched. "I never said he's _supposed_ to come with me. He's just... very good at tracking people."

"Is he a policeman or something?"

"He's my stalker."

Skull scratched the back of his helmet.

Well. They did say Sky Attraction was a fearsome force.

"Skull-sama is looking forward to meeting him, then! If he stalks you again, I'll protect you!"

Tsuna laughed.

"That's really sweet of you, thank you." He sent a look full of warmth at Skull, and the ghost was uncomfortably reminded of the moment he made friends with Luce. "But you probably shouldn't. He's scarily smart and might find a way to hurt you even in your state. Besides, he's very... stormy. With a chance of dynamite."

"I understand what you mean about smart, scary friends." Skull threw a look at his pacifier on the ground, dull and half-buried in leaves. Reborn would want to kill him for this, which was the perfect reason to say what he said next. "By the way, you do know I'm not the only ghost here?"

Tsuna blinked a few times before sighing in defeat and plopping down to sit on top of his luggage.

"Yeah. Of course. This is my life, after all."

Skull grinned.

"Hey, cheer up! Not all of them are totally horrid!"

There was a spiritual, angry tugging on the pacifier that bound them all. Skull didn't give a damn.

"Me aside, there are six others here."

"Joy."

"Skull-sama is the best of all, of course." Skull winked. He wanted to sweep back his gorgeous purple hair but then remembered the helmet and huffed. It was criminal that his beauty was hidden from the world.

"Why do all people I see have such big egos?" Tsuna whined softly before blinking up at Skull. "Okay, I'm all ears. Just hit me with it."

"Hit you with my charm and awesomeness?"

"Oh, no, you've already staggered me with those. Tell me about the others."

"Sometimes I feel like the most under-appreciated character of a crack anime," Skull mumbled, the sound muffled by his helmet. "Well, first there is Lal Mirch. She's a tsundere. You know, a classic one."

He valiantly ignored enraged hissing from the pacifier. Tsuna looked around in bewilderment before sighing and saying, "Yeah, never enough of those in my life."

"She's pretty awesome – although not as awesome as me, obviously – unless you're being stupid."

Tsuna wilted.

"What if I'm always stupid?"

"You're fucked," Skull told him bluntly. "But hey, at least she'll do her best to teach you some nice stuff. And she doesn't hit as hard once she's warmed up to you. She only sent me flying through the wall about seven times after we started training. That can't be said about her other former student, Colonello. He lives here, too. Look for him in the highest tower – oh, and Lal lives in the dungeons, by the way. The torture chambers."

"Of course," Tsuna said with beautiful and tragic eyes. "My life can't be complete without torture chambers."

"Trust me, it's fine unless you meet her pet," Skull promised. He lied, of course. But he was actually getting pumped up about this Sky and didn't want him to flee yet. People were selfish beings, even dead ones. Especially dead ones. "In the dungeons you'll also meet Viper. He inhabits the treasury. He's a proof that all you need to be happy is money. Lastly, there's Verde. He's a scientist. I know he's somewhere in the dungeons, too, but not exactly where. He's never shared it with the class."

Knowing Verde, it would probably be somewhere creepy.

Then again, Skull doubted it would be a loss to either Tsuna or the scientist if they never met. Verde had never really displayed any desire for a Sky – unless it was dissecting a Sky, but he didn't really think Tsuna needed _that_ type of interest.

Actually, Tsuna already looked more and more down with every word Skull spoke.

"So, that means there are two more." The brunette looked happy. Not.

"Yep," Skull popped the last sound cheerfully. "Fon is in the kitchens. He's an okay guy, actually. Smiling, kind – that kind of stuff. You'll never know you've offended or irritated him somehow."

You'll never know you've offended or irritated him because by the time Fon got irritated, the people who caused it ended up with a strange case of death by Storm Flames. A lovely reason to never trust people who always smiled.

Tsuna watched him suspiciously with a flicker in his pretty orange eyes. Skull remembered vaguely something about Skies and their instincts. Intuition?

"And then there is Reborn." Skull's spectral body shuddered. The glass of his pacifier on the ground gleamed brighter.

"What is this Reborn person like?" The Sky smiled, pretty and indulgent.

Skull pitied the boy for what was to come – he definitely didn't deserve that. There were many ways to describe Reborn. Some of them complimentary, others not very much so. Even the ways to describe what Reborn would do to a person using the not-very-much-so option were very telling. In the end, he settled on-

"Reborn is what you get when all you have in life is a small gun and many anger issues."

* * *

 _ **Next Chapter:**_ some info on how Necromancy works, Uncle Kawahira (which means bits of plot because Uncle Kawahira is like that), very soft 1827 in a flashback (I know, literally no one wants to read about Hibari being socially inept with a crush on Tsuna but I can't resist), and another Arcobaleno (which one, how do you think?).

* * *

\- If you think the last sentence was Skull making a 'small dick' joke, you are right.

\- Don't know if you'll be happy or disappointed, but in the end I've decided to include Tsuna's Guardians in this. Wouldn't it be sad to leave them dead and lonely back in Namimori? So, again, if you think this means a bit of subtle one-sided Guardians27, you are right.

\- Thank you again for reading and commenting!


	3. Bodice Ripper Vampire Man

Hey, everyone! Thank you all so much for your reviews, please have another chapter! Yeah, I took my time with it, but at least it's long ;)

I didn't manage to cram everything I wanted here, so keep in mind that some of the events will be recounted in more detail when they become more relevant. Also, most of this chapter is a continued flashback/timeline.

Another important thing: this chapter is mostly really cute fluff! Again, some of the stuff here is quite depressing at its core, but I'm leaving out a lot of the angst until after Tsuna meets all the Arcobaleno at least.

Hope that you enjoy!

* * *

 ** _Chapter 3. Bodice Ripper Vampire Man_**

* * *

Tsuna hummed and _ignored_.

Yes, the word 'ignored' absolutely required italics because Tsuna learnt the art of ignoring what's under his nose from a master, and boy did he have a lot to ignore at the moment.

This whole bloody castle, for one.

To be fair - even though Tsuna had no obligation to be fair to a bunch of rocks somehow put together to make a habitation - it was rather pretty inside. Suprisingly neat. Plenty of light everywhere. Lots of white marble in the grand ballrooms and dining halls and warm, light wood in the personal chambers.

Tsuna's own room had definitely belonged to a woman, once. A feminine touch glowed through everything: the white and pastel tones of the furniture and fabrics with a special accent on pastel oranges (which Tsuna didn't mind since he was rather partial to orange, himself), a plethora of well-crafted jewellery boxes and tiny perfume bottles which would be more at home in a collectioner's shelf behind thick glass rather than at Tsuna's current abode, the small-framed pictures of birds and flowers on the walls, the stack of hand-made lace waiting patiently on a crafting table in the corner for someone to come and complete it.

It was even situated in a tower, as pink as the rest of the monstrous castle, just in case Tsuna wanted to feel like Rapunzel in the morning.

It was the perfect princess room…

Except for a door.

His new room had three doors: the biggest one that led to the main corridor, the white bathroom door that almost merged with the wall, and the door into a private study.

The last one was of particular interest to Tsuna and what he suspected to be the reason for Kawahira suddenly offering him a vacation. That blasted man never did anything without a motive. Tsuna just hadn't expected to find one so very soon.

The studdy was stuffy and musty despite a window overtaking the whole of the wall, some shelves lining half of the remaining space. Various sketches and graphs and runic arrays mushroomed across the rest, not leaving even a single inch bare. A lot of loose papers were sewn into journals and stacked into clearly labelled boxes. Tsuna appreciated the - possibly - lady who had lived there before him. She had even left him an impressive collection of stationery!

…It was probably not on purpose, but at least she had been nice enough to die without leaving a mess and trash in her personal study.

She also left Necromantic tools sitting innocently in various corners of the room, so jarring compared to the rest of the furniture: a bronze-covered skull baring its teeth at him from a bookshelf, several small bags of salt with herbs in them lying in a neat pile in a wooden crate at the foot of the desk, a few focusing crystals in a gem box by a rose pencil case, a manual on storing bodies standing proudly amidst cookery books…

There was a lot to go through. Tsuna hoped dearly Uncle Kawahira didn't expect him to overhaul and systemise all of that.

Fortunately, at least, Uncle Kawahira had taken care to clean everything up with Mist flames beforehand, so Tsuna didn't have to deal with cobwebs smothering the corners nor with pesky rodents. He had no idea how it could be accomplished with pure Mist flames, but even if it was just an illusion, well, this time Tsuna would readily believe it.

Still…

"Next time you offer me a vacation, I would appreciate to go somewhere without haunted torture dungeons, please and thank you," Tsuna mumbled under his breath, storing his underwear in the bedside drawer. The amount of wardrobes, sets of drawers, tall-boys, decorated boxes and trunks, and other containers and spaces for storing things in this castle honestly overwhelmed him and made him feel inadequate with his single luggage bag.

"I shall take this into consideration, Tsunayoshi." Checkerface's voice sounded arrogant and different from when Uncle Kawahira talked. Colder. Harsher. Like they hadn't spent the past years teaching each other how to family. "It will be an ossuary next time."

Tsuna sighed and continued unpacking.

"It's useless to talk to you when you're like this."

"Like what?" Checkerface asked with all the warmth of a sea of glaciers. His strange checkered mask was as unmoving as ever and covered his eyes. The cane he was holding tapped the light wood of the floor in a steady, menacing rhythm.

Tsuna just sighed again and ignored again.

Sometimes he wondered if his mentor-ly figure had a split personality disorder.

He loved the Uncle Kawahira who would attempt to make a vegan soup and end up blowing up a house or two or twenty. The one who made him tea when Tsuna was upset. The one who hovered over his shoulder whenever he came back home late, who worried where his own mother didn't. Who was there where his own father wasn't.

The one who taught him how to make friends even if they weren't very living and the one who acquired a friend in turn in Tsuna.

Checkerface was different.

He didn't worry, unless his mysterious plans were endangared.

However, Tsuna knew that this man was still a part of his mentor, and he didn't want to be one of those people who would only accept the parts they want to see. Tsuna had lived too much time with a person like that to ever want to become one.

This Uncle Kawahira covered his eyes with that strange mask-hat, reminding Tsuna of those children who believe that just because they shield their faces with their hands and don't see the world, the world won't see them either. Secretly, he found that side more pathetic – but not as pathetic as himself, who never voiced those thoughts out loud.

"Did you bring them here, too?" Tsuna asked instead, to get rid of all the depressing emotions swirling in his mind. It was easier to get into the steady rhythm of pulling out an article of clothing, fold it neatly in the way Uncle Kawahira taught him to and store it away. Repeat. A shame he didn't bring too much.

Checkerface leaned back against the post of Tsuna's new bed - God, how was he going to sleep on this fluffy monstrosity - and clicked his fingers.

It was as if a curtain of mist rose, and Tsuna's… well. He supposed he would call them friends… popped into view, lying in neatly arranged coffins in the corner of his room. Five differently-sized, reality-wracking coffins side by side with a sewing machine and a craft desk. A few pieces of lace were pushed by a gust of breeze straying into the room and fell on Hibari-san's dark purple, iron-clad bed.

"I would have preferred a separate room for them," Tsuna said through pursed lips. He couldn't keep his eyes from softening at the sight of his friends. A shame the study wasn't big enough to hold them all.

"It's always best for a Necromancer's familiar to stay beside them."

"Yes, but what about what's best for the Necromancer?"

Checkerface clucked his tongue. "Tsunayoshi. Are we pretending again that you are not a pushover who is willing to inconvenience yourself in all the ways that matter for your friends again today?"

"You know, you could have put it in another way." Tsuna finished unpacking. He rose. "Literally any other way would have done quite nicely."

Checkerface smirked. He closed the space between Tsuna and himself, grabbing the boy's chin tightly with a pale, forceful hand. Tsuna twitched at the contact with Kawahira's ring - a vile thing, with its tiny feelers in constant motion, soaked to the bone with a cursed energy that even Tsuna with all his experience of the vilest filth could barely tolerate. He wondered why Kawahira was so attached to it. He wondered why he even wanted to know.

"But this is how I chose to go about it."

Tsuna groaned. Checkerface was unbearable. He swatted his mentor's hand away.

"Urgh. Look. Can you just… give them back to me? For real?" You could never know whether anything Kawahira did wasn't a well-crafted illusion. Sometimes Tsuna wondered whether the man knew it himself.

"What are you talking about? They are all already here." Checkerface gestured at the coffins with the rejected hand. The ring's twitching feelers pulsed with power. "I have done all the work and even went through the trouble of transporting everything myself so you wouldn't have to lug all this extra luggage."

"My friends are not extra luggage!" Tsuna snapped. True, they weren't perfect but… "Why do you insist on always being so…"

"Friendship is a hard thing for me to understand."

"But… I thought we were friends, too?"

Checkerface paused.

"I have never once thought of you as a friend, Tsunayoshi."

There was no need to let the twinge of hurt show. This wasn't the first time a parental figure disappointed him.

Tsuna was not surprised at the sentiment. He was surprised at the free admission. He had hoped to keep some hopeful thoughts, no matter how false they were, because even false affection was better than none. How stupid. Had he wanted that, he should have never brought this up when it was Checkerface who held the reins. That man never allowed illusions to anyone but himself.

"Your familiars are not your friends either," Checkerface continued, as if one twisted knife would never be good enough. Tsuna breathed through his nose, reached for the warm light inside of him, and remembered that he wasn't hearing any words that he hadn't heard before. The sun warmed his back, and however small, that was all the encouragement he needed. Sometimes even small things had worth when they improved your mental health.

"But that's how I want to treat them," Tsuna found the strength to reply. He let conviction line his words. His conviction was biting and if Checkerface finched away - well. Tsuna learnt everything from the greatest masters. "They are not like you. In their eyes, I am more than just a Necromantic Sky useful for things you will never tell me until it's way too late. I am Tsuna. Which is a tough point of view for you to understand, most likely."

Tsuna smiled and decided that he upset himself enough for one day. He still didn't know what to make of the ghost he had met in the gardens, Skull, and what to make of the other inhabitants of the castle he was yet to meet. None of them sounded nice. They probably weren't. In Tsuna's life, even the things that sounded good eventually went tragically wrong; it was a nightmare to imagine how something that wasn't even trying to hide itself would turn out. Tsuna should probably redo some of his protection charms that he constantly carried on his person. It would be just like Uncle Kawahira to let him get horribly hurt as a learning exercise, even though Tsuna had been saying for years that being maimed didn't make him any more receptive to new information.

Leaving the warmth of the sun shining through the window, Tsuna went closer to the coffins, to sweep a hand across their surfaces, to see they were real and not a cruel illusion like the friendship he had imagined had been.

However, no matter how much Tsuna doubted so many things in his life, he never doubted this: they were real.

Of course, these were only the physical bodies. His friends' spirits resided in a box he always kept near his heart. 'Captured', classic Necromantic texts would say, because that was the usual way to keep a spirit. 'Free', his friends would respond because he didn't need to bind them to him for them to remain by his side. Even Gokudera Hayato, as much as his passion and overall obsession regarding Tsuna stifled him at times, chose to be by Tsuna's side - when Tsuna couldn't run away from him fast enough to hide, of course.

He swiped a tender hand across the rough wooden surface of Takeshi's coffin, lingering on the cold that radiated from the inside.

Since most of his friends came in bio-degradable bodies, Tsuna had needed a special technique to preserve them without relying on such things as power supply and the presence of a refridgerator in the zone.

Uncle Kawahira had made a point of teaching him Zero Pont Breakthrough as soon as possible, since it was a superior technique mastered by Vongola Primo himself. Stuff of legends. Tsuna found it perfect for freezing ice-cream when it kept melting in the summer heat. It also prolonged the shelf life of such things as fried rice, gyoza, a severed torso to sew up later, the merriest zombie on earth, a bloodthirsty vampire in search of a mate…

Vongola Primo had probably never seen that use of his flames coming.

"You are a hypocrite, Tsunayoshi," Checkerface accused in a soft voice that signified he hadn't got his fill of suffering that day. Tsuna sometimes wondered why he needed his Uncle actually alive. He hadn't contributed to anyone actually dying - at least not directly - but there was always room for opportunities. Uncle Kawahira often said so himself. Maybe that was just a thinly veiled hint? Urgh. Tsuna must be really cranky to think this. "You claim friendship, yet you are perfectly happy to never see one of your so-called 'friends' again."

Tsuna froze before shifting uncomfortably. Damn. He needed a distraction. But… There was nothing left to unpack, nothing to put away, and he didn't want to explore too much under his Uncle's watchful eye; he wouldn't be able to see things but rather worry about been seen reacting the way his mentor wouldn't judge too harshly in his current sadistic form, and the memory would forever be corrupted.

Ghosts of dubious personal qualities aside, the castle was lovely. He wanted to derive some joy out of exploring it. Some wonder. Because there was so much of it in the world, but sometimes you needed to put in just a little bit of effort to notice it all. Tsuna had needed Uncle Kawahira to show him how.

"If you are talking about Hibari-san" Tsuna started slowly, tasting every word in his mouth, mumbling through it. "Then there are… reasons."

'Reasons' was the word that came up a lot in the entire relationship the two of them had.

Hibari-san was his first in many ways.

* * *

It was a private graveyard, so strange and unique to the Hibari family, spirits of whom roamed all over the town of Namimori, always watching over it. Ceaseless control even beyond death.

A lovely evening breeze fluttered Tsuna's flyaway hairs, played with the hem of his yukata - Uncle Kawahira always told him that if it were his destiny to be a Necromancer, he might as well fulfil it in style. He had his own vision of style, which meant that Tsuna had had to try on many a humiliating outfit that would have been more fit for a carneval or a teenage girl trying out new stuff to find herself, but Uncle Kawahira hadn't particularly cared about Tsuna's sensibilities, and, well. It's not like dressing weird was going to change anyone's opinion of him because those couldn't sink any lower anyway.

Tsuna couldn't help but think those things. Otherwise, he would have to see as Uncle Kawahira spread apart the remnants of a long-dead child over a tablecloth of fresh leaves. The body, preserved like those of the rest of the Hibari clan. A family tradition that stemmed from ages long past, when the family first moved in. Legends told of a powerful Necromancer ruling the land behind the scenes, of immortality and a chance to gain it if you only knew the right people.

Only the Hibaris, however, believed ardently in this. Surprising how a town as steeped in traditions and myths managed to spawn so many people with minds forever closed.

Uncle Kawahira nodded with satisfaction once he finished rearranging a dead boy's stiff limbs in the correct position - everything in Necromancy was built on precision. He wasn't dirty even after working the whole day with the earth and the corpse, and even the wind didn't dare touch him. Uncle Kawahira always appeared like a cutout from another story whom someone carelessly slapped into Tsuna's life.

"Tsunayoshi, have you prepared the salt?"

The boy winced. "Um. Probably?"

Uncle Kawahira rubbed the stem of his glasses with long fingers, one of those gestures that showed his irritation whereas his face stayed still.

"This is not the correct answer."

"It's the only answer I can give. Hiee! I- I'll do it! No need to conjure those… awful things!"

Huffing, Tsuna felt around for the small bag of purified salts. The circles were already drawn, waiting for the hour, but these salts were made specifically to disintegrate an undead's body on contact. Quite brutal, in Tsuna's opinion. He had never had cause to use them. He hoped he never would. "Are you sure all of this is necessary? I mean can't we just… go read a book or something instead? Watch a scary horror film?"

Uncle Kawahira shot him an unimpressed glance, while waving a stick of sage for smudging to purify the air from evil influences lingering at the graveyard like a veil of deepest blackness.

"And what are you going to learn from that?"

"That. Um. That zombies are scary?" Tsuna scratched his cheek with a finger. He smiled nervously, remembering that his mother had once told him it was cute, back when he was five.

Uncle Kawahira shot him one of those glances that clearly proclaimed just how pathetic he thought Tsuna was. Tsuna refused to shuffle his feet and instead rubbed the back of his head, his hair fluffy under his fingertips. At least now that he'd taken the decision to grow it out, he had more to rub. Besides, brushing it in the evenings was a quiet affair that soothed him, a nightly ritual similar to meditation.

"No."

The purification over, Uncle Kawahira stepped back to invite Tsuna closer. Tsuna didn't hurry to comply. He still wasn't quite sold on the neccessity of zombies in his life.

Uncle Kawahira just stared at him for a while, probably contemplating all the life choices he had made that had contributed to him taking Tsuna on as a student. Sometimes Tsuna wondered which of them really drew the short stick.

"You are tearing me apart, Tsunayoshi," Uncle Kawahira said with a completely deadpan face, like a disaster artist with zero acting skills.

"Um. It's either you… or me?" Tsuna slumped under his mentor's gaze and slouched forward with a sullen pout. Those were his early forays into the world of dead-raising and the whole process didn't strike his fancy. Leaving aside such small matters like seeing the maggots and bodies in all states of decomposition (he vomited the first time; it never got much better), Necromancy like this took its toll on his body and soul.

To raise an actual zombie - and not just a corpse that would move to its master's commands - was an active skill, unlike just seeing the spirits and communicating with them. You had to put in actual effort. Tsuna… Well. Saying he wasn't much good at that would be an underestimation. Not all his marks were so ridiculously bad just because of townsfolk's prejudice.

At least his mother was a baffling mix of neglectful and accidentally encouraging. She never questioned the bags of salt crowding one of their cupboards despite her never using salt in food, politely didn't mention the occasional stray head in the cupboard or ectoplasm in her make-up bag. It's because of her that his Necromancy studies flourished. Aside from the fact that the dead were generally much more accommodating than the living, and a mausoleum made a nicer hang-out place than your local arcade once you got to the know folks who lived there.

Uncle Kawahira always made him work hard for those skills, however, and now Tsuna filled up with pride because right here, right now… he was doing something. Something useful. Perhaps it wouldn't be useful for humanity, and Necromancy definitely didn't pay the bills, but bringing monsters back into existence made Tsuna feel so human, so alive like he had never seen himself before.

His only regret was that he would never be able to share that feeling of alive-ness with his mentor, who always just looked on as if every step of Tsuna's journey were merely a box to tick rather than a life-shattering event.

Perhaps that's why, when the deed was over…

Tsuna couldn't help himself. He engulfed the child they'd ripped from the clutches of eternal peace in the warmest hug he could manage, his heart beating so loud Tsuna hoped with all his might it would beat for two. Even if he knew how unrealistic such hopes were.

It didn't end well, but Tsuna still couldn't help but think that he did right even though he ended up in hospital for a whole week.

* * *

Hibari Kyoya was not an easy person to get along with, and that fact didn't change even through his death.

Their relationship saw it all: tears and pain, emotional outbursts and stubborn silence, quiet naps and bird-watching, Tsuna giving Hibari-san a chance to go to the zoo to see the rabbits, Kyoya wiping Tsuna's silent tears with fingers that would never carry warmth again but were so gentle, so loving, they always made Tsuna feel like a treasure Kyoya would never let go.

Tsuna picked up every pearl of knowledge about the spirit stuck eternally in a child's body. He handled them all with the same care, loving every bit that would reveal the personality and history of the beligerent entity that made its home in a place that was never Tsuna's but filled up with warmth when his dearest people were in it.

Small things, like the not-child's stubbornness.

Every day Hibari-san, still dressed in a primary school sailor uniform, his cute yellow panama hat on his head and lethal wounds covered up with animal-printed bandages, would attempt to go out to 'renew his claim on Namimori'.

After a while of bribing wandering spirits, Tsuna had an idea of what it entailed and wasn't particularly thrilled.

Thankfully, (or so he would say out loud even though he would never find joy in seeing Kyoya's face crumble after each day of failure), while Tsuna was an outstandingly powerful Necromancer, he wasn't a good one. It showed. Every time Hibari-san tried to leave the house to reassert his dominance, he would be unluckily… prevented.

It wasn't that easy to bite someone to death when your jaw suddenly decided it liked unhinging. Or when both your legs remembered that they should probably be stuck in rigor mortis or even finished rotting.

Tsuna did attempt to save Hibari-san from that unenviable fate each and every time it happened but… Well.

Needless to say, Hibari-san was not a happy little camper, and his mood only worsened when Tsuna steadily kept attracting himself new friends who would attach themselves to him. Don't get him wrong, Tsuna tried. It's just that… Yeah. He was simply ridiculously bad at things.

(At least Uncle Kawahira showed a surprising amount of understanding by not mocking him on days Tsuna felt particularly down about his lack of ability. Failure was aparently not a word in his mentor's dictionary, and Tsuna was outright forbidden from calling himself Dame or Useless or any other variant of the phrase. He knew it was probably just Uncle Kawahira's narcissism speaking, but the warmth that filled his chest wouldn't go away anyway, no matter how hard he tried).

But Hibari-san wasn't nearly as understanding as any other person in Tsuna's Necromantic life, which meant that someone ended up bitten to death. A lot. Sometimes a lot of someones would be bitten to death.

And that's not mentioning all those poor people who'd get in his way on days when Hibari-san did manage to get out. The boy always growled and grit his teeth when a hand holding tonfa fell off just as he tried to bite to death a troublemaker. Hibari-san counted those days as failures. In Tsuna's humble opinion, seeing a dead boy's hand falling off was effective enough an incentive to stop drawing graffiti on public buildings.

Despite it all, Tsuna treasured every second spent with his very first friend. It was just that at one point everything between them became… complicated.

Like in those bodice ripper novels his mother hid in a stash, it all started with a handsome vampire coming to town.

* * *

The vampire's name was Hibarin and he was a mockery of everything Kyoya had lost.

His body was the key to everything Kyoya desired.

Two entities would never share.

* * *

Tsuna suspected how everything would end the moment Hibarin leaned down and licked his throat before biting into his tender flesh.

Tsuna knew what he was doing even as he stifled a moan with his hand. A suprisingly hot tongue swiped across the column of his neck, cleaning up the beads of blood leaking from two small marks in his neck. Sorrow stormed through his heart even as Tsuna tangled his fingers with the soft black locks of Hibarin's hair, exhaled a warm gust of breath into the top of the vampire's head.

What Tsuna would be doing would be neither fair nor just. Most people would prosaically call it 'murder'.

However, Hibari-san was so important to him, and Hibari-san suffered so much from being stuck in the body of a child barely held together by Tsuna's lacking Necromantic skills, and Tsuna wanted to do at least something for him after summoning Hibari-san's soul to remind it of everything it lost, and-

And Tsuna knew how to link bodies and souls even if they didn't belong together.

* * *

Everything should be over by now. Tsuna tugged on the hair on the back of his neck as he waited, just to be sure.

Two figures were lying on the floor. Only one spirit remained. Finally, the vampire rose to his feet. The brunet immediately gasped and flinched, his hand held out in the air uncertainly.

"Er… Hibari-san?" Tsuna tried anxiously. "O-Or is it Hibarin-san?"

The undead prefect shot him a disdainful look.

"That fake-carnivore is gone," he declared, which told Tsuna pretty much nothing since both entities were of the same opinion about each other. "I bit him to death, and now nothing will disrupt the peace of Namimori."

And so Hibari-san dramatically swished his gakuran and disappeared into the doorway.

Tsuna remained in place, pondering important questions.

How do you bite to death a vampire?

He wisely didn't voice that thought. At least Hibari-san looked happy as a vampire and stopped losing limbs in his bedroom every day.

Uncle Kawahira froze for two hours after Tsuna enthusiastically hugged him that evening.

* * *

The complications didn't end there.

Hibari-san may have been happy to acquire a reliable body through which he could inflict viole- discipline upon Namimori, but the recipients of his loving guidance showed little enthusiasm. 'Little' meant 'not at all'. In fact, some of them were so unenthusiastic that the number of people dying of heart attacks somehow quadrupled within the first day of the boy's return.

Tsuna could understand them. After all, scenes like this one became very common:

A group of delinquents, relaxed after such a long vacation from disciplining, crowded a corridor. Their hands shook as they fiddled with the objects hanging down their necks in thick strands.

"Fancy this will save us from Hibari?" one of them whispered anxiously.

"Death didn't save us from Hibari!"

A dramatic shadow slid in through the window. The delinquents froze.

"You. Garlic necklaces are not an acceptable part of school uniform. You will be bitten to death." Tonfa gleamed beautifully in the dawning sun.

"AAAAAH!"

Many sounds of bloodbath later, Tsuna crawled out of his safe space. Walking through the carnage, he wondered whether Uncle Kawahira would kill him or Hibari would get to him first. Oh well.

Like with all the spirits Tsuna summoned, even if now Hibari-san inhabited a different body, Tsuna was in control of how much the entity would be able to actively occupy it. He would generally give his friends a few hours a day before they would return to the vessels holding their souls since staying in a body required effort not only from him (which was already bad enough) but also from them. Even the most stubborn of them tired themselves out. So…

The spell was bound to wear off somehow… right?

(It did wear off. Not before Hibari-san accomplished several major cases of murdered and established himself as the immortal carnivore of Namimori forever. Tsuna came home and did what he did best – crawled under the blankets and cried).

* * *

After unleashing the undead catastrophe that was a zombie/vampire Hibari upon Namimori, to his biggest regret and with the heaviest heart, Tsuna was forced to shut down the connection between them, stopping the flow of Flames and thus ensuring that Hibari-san wouldn't multiply the population of ghosts in their hometown.

They would still be able to communicate. Just… Hibari-san wouldn't be able to communicate with anyone outside of Tsuna and his bonded familiars.

But of course carnivores don't go down without driving the final nail.

In Tsuna's case, the nail came in the form of a love confession. He cried again, because what happened to his life that he would rather summon demons than receive a confession from the girl he liked?

…Except it wasn't a girl. And there was literally no 'liked' involved in the equation.

They stood in a blood-splattered classroom, the sun cheerfully shining upon the splintered desks and chairs and warming their skin. In the middle of it, Hibari stood stock-still. No movement, unnatural even for a vampire. Tsuna, with a frown, ventured forward to find an explanation.

"Hibari-san?" he asked. After a moment of deliberation, he pressed a gentle hand against the vampire's frosty forehead, ignoring the fact that he had to stand up on his toes to reach it. "What is it?"

A pause.

"I am blushing," Hibari said with a serious, deadpan white face.

Tsuna cringed away and dropped his hand.

"Um… Hibari-san…" How did he break it gently? "You have no blood."

The vampire chose to either not hear him or ignore him – then again, did anyone in this place ever listen to him? Tsuna wondered when his life had gone so wrong and instead decided to watch the violets wilting on the classroom windowsill, as if they wanted to die from having to hear this conversation. Tsuna did, too. Still, he watched them and tried to remember what Uncle Kawahira had said about answers coming up in the strangest of places.

Hibari, meanwhile, observed him intently.

"When I look at you… what… is this feeling… in my chest?" the vampire mumbled, placing a hand against his silent heart.

Tsuna burnt the violets with his gaze. Metaphorically, for now.

"…And-" Hibari continued with a spark of enlightenment in his eyes. "-there are butterflies. In my stomach."

"Please kill them!" Tsuna all but shrieked.

Hibari blinked at him in confusion and pressed his hand to his flat stomach protectively, like a pregnant woman.

"Butterflies are small animals. Carnivores don't kill small animals; we guide you. Gently. With tonfas."

"They're insects-"

"They're small and pretty. Small animals."

Was that a zombie hedgehog crawling down Hibari's shoulder?

Tsuna sighed and rubbed his eyes. How did he deal with this situation? Again, the violets only nodded sadly in the wind whistling through the cracks in the windowpane, as if saying, 'better you than me, pal'.

"Anyway. Hibari-san!" he finally squeaked out. "We're not in a shoujo manga! Please no feelings in your chest- no butterflies either! Yes, even if they're small animals!"

Hibari scoffed and pushed a stack of books off the table with a tonfa just to drop there himself. Tsuna wondered why he couldn't pull out a chair.

"Of course we are not in a shoujo manga, Small Animal."

Tsuna put a hand to his chest, sighing. This time a pleased sigh. Finally. He had little reason for those lately.

He would ignore the 'small animal' comment and all its implications until his dying day. Considering the stress in his life, it would come soon enough anyway.

"-We are both men. For us, it's called 'yaoi', isn't it?"

What.

Tsuna looked at the table. The table looked at him. Hibari's declarations shocked things into gaining awareness, apparently.

"…Hibari-san, how do you even know this word?"

Hibari tsked.

"Herbivores are constantly disrupting discipline in Namimori." The zombire pouted. Or Tsuna thought it was a pout – that pull of lips looked terrifying. "Racy literature is forbidden and taken into the custody of the Disciplinary Committee, who are obliged to check the contents of the confiscated goods. Yet no matter how many herbivores get bitten, it is one of the most common transgressions in the school."

Hibari sounded very puzzled over that. Vaguely annoyed.

Tsuna just wondered how huge the Committee's stash of porn was.

* * *

"Tsunayoshi," Checkerface began in a displeased tone, snapping Tsuna back to present, to an abandoned bedroom in a lively castle. "Take some responsibility."

He looked at the boy expectantly, as if he had been saying something all this time.

Tsuna stared at him blankly.

Right.

"I'll… Um, go make a sandwich."

He did the brave thing and fled to the kitchen. Yeah, thanks. He'd take an unknown ghost over a socially inept vampire with a crush any day.

* * *

In the course of the future weeks of interactions, Tsuna would realise two vital facts:

1) You could never escape the Hibari.

2) Social skills ran in the family.

* * *

The kitchen was a nice place, just like the rest of the rooms. Spacious, well-aired. A little bit on the oriental side when it came to the style of the furniture, and even from here Tsuna could see an exit to two dining-rooms: one with a low table and pillows around it, while the other traditionally European with elegantly carved furnititure and a beautiful lace tablecloth and chairs cushions.

The electric appliances were a little dated. Nevertheless, someone had stocked the kitchen nicely with all types of plates, pans, kettles, silverware (that even included a set of little gold teaspoons with elaborate handles!), and everything a person fond of culinary arts could ever wish for. A glass case showed off a beautiful collection of porcelain tea and coffee sets, all carefully labelled with the name of the company that had produced them written in golden lettering on thick white cards.

Everything showed the same level of care as the decorations back in Tsuna's room.

On opening the fridge Tsuna discovered quite the nice selection of fruits, vegetables, eggs, dairy, and other foods probably put there courtesy of Uncle Kawahira. Some meats crammed the freezer. Even the cupboards were full: sushi rice, brown rice, basmati, corns, beans, even weird stuff that Tsuna never used in cooking like couscous and buckwheat and bulgur all dwelt there.

Uncle Kawahira probably didn't trust Tsuna not to run away if he had to go food shopping. His mentor knew him too well.

"How strange. I don't remember any of these foods getting here," a voice said.

It wasn't Tsuna's voice.

"My friend brought everything here," the boy sighed out in resignation. Of course making a snack couldn't be that easy. It's like Tsuna's whole fate is tied up with overbearing, sadistic mentors who would make even the simplest tasks into challenges for him.

"Quite a fascinating friend you have. Although of course no one could be as fascinating as you," the voice went on. It was very pleasant, all kind and attractive, to the point the Sky couldn't withhold a shiver. It reminded Tsuna of something. Of someone. "I would really like to know you better, Tsuna."

Tsuna couldn't keep down a blush from how his name was said. Like it was a piece of luxurious, delicious chocolate someone was melting in their mouth.

But there was a little issue.

"Um," he started, his head turning a little. "How do you know my name?"

"Ah, why shouldn't I?" the ghost sounded puzzled, as if the concept of being leery of a stranger knowing your name was absolutely foreign.

Tsuna frowned and finally turned fully. His mouth... fell open.

Because... Because Tsuna was looking right into the stranger's very handsome face and-

Oh dear. Tsuna- Tsuna knew that face.

"HIEEE! WHY ARE THERE SO MANY HIBARIS?!"

* * *

 ** _Next chapter:_** the kitchen ghost. Because that's the best place to hang around after you die if you are a masochist.

* * *

\- Hope you enjoyed the update and thanks to everyone for your support!


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